a very human experience

you know, i think it's funny how no matter how many times i have this experience and how many times i want it to be different the same pattern pretty much emerges. i meet a guy. he seems interesting. i start to like him. throughout this phase i'm pretty easy going.

i share more about me. i get to know him more. i like him more, and i think the feeling might be mutual. i start to want to see him more and get to know him even better. i want him to be more present in my life and i in his. it's about at this time that my fatalistic side starts to emerge and with it all of the self-doubt and reasons why the relationship will not proceed any further and/or is doomed to fail eventually.

the reasons often vary. sometimes it's about logistics. sometimes it's about the "shoulds and shouldn'ts" about how i feel i'm expected to behave or what i should want to be a respectable individual -- playing by norms that society has established that i neither asked for nor do i feel really fit me. always there is the common element of how i do and don't see myself. any assets i possess become diminished if not imperceptible and any "liabilities" become magnified -- looks, age (a new addition to the list), neuroses, this continually sensitive and increasingly vulnerable heart -- all seem ample reason for anticipated rejection and all cause me to question what i am doing.

i'm in the grips of this same pattern again. i know i have to accept that what will be will be. people tell me to take risks. i know i need to and i do. it just would be nice if, when i did so with men, the results were more often rewarding than damaging.